Judgement

Judgement: Publisher’s Description
Judgement is Rick Johnson’s second novel. The first, Sequestered, marked the arrival of an intelligent life form and their massive starship into Earth orbit. Humans were shocked to learn that they were not alone in the galaxy. Using the science fiction genre as a device for critique, Sequestered examined ten-thousand years of human deficiency and cruelty — from Gobekli Tepe, to Carthage, to Teotihuacan, to Hiroshima. Ultimately, the extraterrestrials decided that a species so inherently aggressive and brutal was a threat to the galaxy. They sequestered humans, confining them to planet Earth, where they are forced to face their frailties and inferiority, to reexamine their beliefs, and to contemplate their future.
Judgement examines humanity’s struggle to end its imprisonment and find its place among the stars. Humans are challenged by the extraterrestrials to attain a cultural and moral high-ground. Can humanity quash war? Can greed be repressed? Is the lust for power controllable? Is partisan politics the only answer? Is there common ground? Can humanity survive itself?
After decades of traumatic fits and starts, the answers begin to emerge. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. But there is a price to be paid. The old ways are gone — forever and irretrievable. The answers are astonishing, bewildering, and perhaps terrifying. But there is no looking back. The solutions manifest in the science and imagination of Maria Sibylla Merian (1679), Charles Darwin (1879), and Jennifer Doudna (2020). We were once Australopithecus. Then Homo habilis, Homo erectus , and Homo sapiens. And now . . . ?